Where is He?
by elvenwanderer
Summary: Elrond, upon hearing slightly distressing news from Elros, attempts to enlist help to find his only other living "relative." The answer he receives is not what he was expecting.


The elleth's eyes followed Elrond through the space in a bookshelf as he searched for something or someone, a usual pastime for him. She guessed he was looking for one of the other library attendants, though when he saw her standing between two of the rows of books, he came straight towards her.

She placed the most recent book and the cleaning cloth she was holding flat onto the shelf in front of her and turned to him, dusting her hands off on her skirts as he approached. Past experience of dealing with Elrond when he had that look on his face meant this was not likely to be a short or uninvolved conversation.

He held a few rolls of parchment under his arms with one partially unrolled in his hand. His hair was skewed off to one side, likely because he had been sleeping over his work with his hand pushing it. He had a flyaway, which she would likely have pointed out had he not been looking so disheveled and unlikely to understand the jest.

He stopped in front of her, clearly uneasy. "Can I talk to you?"

Aratariel started slightly, unused to being addressed so informally by her cousin's former ward. He normally at least stated her name and greeted her, as was customary. Elrond was rarely one to ignore formality, and for him to do so he must be truly distressed. "Of course you may. What is it?"

Elrond looked around, uncomfortable. "Elsewhere, please. My rooms or yours, perhaps?"

She studied the young ellon for a few moments before answering. He met her scrutiny at first with slight defiance followed by almost immediate resignation. Aratariel nodded after a few moments, eyebrows drawn together. "Let me tell one of the other attendants where I am going. I can finish this tomorrow." She lay a careful hand on top of a few of the sideways books on the shelf before her. "I shall meet you outside." She gave him a cautious smile. Elrond nodded and quickly turned away before Aratariel had an opportunity to. She frowned at the elf's retreating back before finding one of her coworkers.

She found Elrond pacing outside the main doors, the half-unrolled parchment still in his hands. The elleth stopped in front of him, and he looked startled when he noticed her. Her head tilted sideways in question. "Elrond?"

"Aratariel. Thank you." He started walking.

"Elrond." He looked back at her, his face confused. "I am comfortable talking with you wherever, but we both live the other way." The ellon mumbled an apology after looking around. She knew he was truly worked up over something.

Without a word, she followed him to where her apartments were located, just outside of the palace, intrigued when he opened the door and let himself in. She blinked at his back a few times before entering her own home after him.

She closed the door, leaning backwards onto it feeling very confused. Elrond turned to her, having dropped the parchments onto her table, his manner clearly uncomfortable as well.

"Where is he, Aratariel?"

She stared at the ellon, guessing at who he was referring to but not understanding why they needed the privacy of her living room to talk about Gil-galad. She made an effort to lighten the mood. "Elrond, I may spend a rather large amount of time around the High-King, but as you are his herald and steward, I am a little surprised you have lost him." She paused. "Most of Lindon knows of my friendship to him, I do not think we needed-"

He rolled his eyes, a very uncharacteristic action for the generally serene and level-headed elf as he cut her off. "No, Aratariel. I am not looking for the King." She stared at him again, awareness dawning on her as Elrond glared at her.

"Who?" She feigned ignorance.

"You know who," Elrond pressed stepping towards her. Her hands raised in front of her automatically, a reflex that would likely never leave her, no matter how many years of peace she would see.

Her voice had dropped an octave and her tone was altered entirely when she said, "say his name." She dropped her hands and moved away from the door and towards the small hearth.

"Maglor," he whispered to the door. He sounded broken and desperate all of a sudden. The elleth took a deep breath, putting her had on the wall to support her as a wave of grief washed over her. She took a moment to compose herself before turning around to face Elrond's back.

"Why?"

Elrond turned to her, not expecting the question. His eyes landed on the unrolled parchment. "I just… I wish to know."

She bit a knuckle between her lips and shook her head slowly. She looked down and the frequency of her head shake increased until she had to turn away again. When she looked up, Elrond had approached and was standing very close to her, his face hard. "Did he… is he… alive?" She stared at Elrond again, looking down the few inches into his eyes. He was puffed up like an animal, or so he seemed, trying to be more imposing than he really was. There were few subjects that would make her so uneasy, and even then he needed to use whatever he could to make her answer. Suddenly she was thankful he had insisted on removing themselves from the library for this conversation. He knew she would not lie to him, and had asked his question in such a way intentionally. "He is, isn't he?"

She closed her eyes, and nodded very slowly, once, knuckle still firmly held between her lips. Elrond sighed and seemed to deflate a little, as if satisfied with the answer. He smiled, slightly before seeing the pained look on Aratariel's face. "Where is he, Aratariel?"

She met his light sea-foam green eyes with hers, his so like his great-grandfather's that sometimes she thought Turukáno must be standing before her again. Just like Turgon's eyes, his spoke volumes of his feelings. "I do not know, Elrond," she offered, honestly.

He deflated again, this time in defeat. "You always knew where he was… before."

The elleth felt her heart reach towards the young ellon as his expression fell. Aratariel studied him again, some of her discomfort at the topic of her cousin being masked by curiosity at Elrond's childish question. Some, but not nearly enough to make her voice not shake. "It was different then, Elrond."

Despite how uncomfortable she had been, she touched his arm and squeezed it. She was put off again when then he asked why she didn't know now, and froze, her fingers clenched on the fabric of his jerkin.

_He doesn't know,_ she thought. _He can't feel it…_. She slumped onto the chair next to her, her hand still clamped on his shirt.

"You know where he is, don't you?" He asked, his other hand reaching to hold hers, though he made no move to pry it from his arm. "Could you find him?"

Aratariel stared at Elrond's nearly rounded ear. "I will not."

"So you know where he is?" Elrond, though he wished to try to pry more information from her, could not keep a small bit of excitement from his voice. "Where?"

The elleth continued to stare at the ellon, her eyes wandering around his face as she considered what he was asking. When her gaze landed on his eyes, he let go of her hand. He remembered that look from his childhood, the feral look that often lived in the eyes of her, Maglor and Maedhros. "Do not try to find him, Elrond. Ever," she warned as she steered him by the fabric of his shirt to sit on the chair next to her.

"Why are you asking me this? Why now? You were always closer to Timo than to Laurë. Your brother always liked Laurë…." She knew why all of a sudden, why he would come to her now. "Is this about Ros?"

Elrond nodded. "I worry for him. He speaks of soon having a child in his letters, and of pain in his joints." He looked down. "He is aging, and I am yet the same."

The elleth knew this was not the time for coddling the ellon. "You will ever be so, Elrond. You both knew that when you made your choice."

"You do not understand," Elrond stood again and paced in her living room. "He is my brother!" Aratariel watched him.

"You wished to find Maglor because he knew the pain of losing a brother," she commented quietly. _Or six._

Elrond turned to her, his eyes flashing in anger. "He was my step-father, yes. Why should I not wish to find him if he is alive?"

"You would do equally well to try to find my other cousins," she snapped in return, her voice cold. "Either way, you would not bring back anything you would recognize."

At this, Elrond sputtered, alarmed by the tone of her voice and what she said. "I… I…." He paused, and moments later, her manner softened again. As much as this hurt her, she was old and hardened enough to handle it. Elrond was still young, and in many ways still very innocent, and she had little right to be angry with him for wanting to find the last remnants of his odd family he could.

"Oh, Elrond," she reached for his hand and he twitched it away from her grasp, afraid. She nodded and clasped her hands in her lap. "I do not know if it is a product of your heritage or whether it is because you are yet so young..." She stood and paced as he stood still. "I grew up with him, and we were very close always. I knew his fëa and he knew mine so well simply because we were so close. He was my best friend, my commander and my cousin. You barely knew the real him, but raising you and Ros always brought out the best of him.

"The sack on Doriath ruined him, Elrond. Ruined what was left of him. You couldn't know what a change was wrought in him when he and Timo finally achieved what they had fought so long and bitterly for. It was more horrible that Timo… died… and his and his elder brother's defeat was the last that Laurë could take.

"He ran, Elrond. Left. Fled from everything. I did not see him again, besides in a dream." Her voice was soft and broken, memories of screams and burning flesh pervading her mind. She closed her eyes, seeing his broken face in her mind. "He called to me, asked me to for-forgive him.

She paused, clearing her throat. "I saw him then, a bent and bowed vision of him. He stood on the edge of the sea on a cliff in the gathering storm. He didn't look back before he cast himself over the edge, into the Valar's destruction…." She looked up to see Elrond staring at her, his face aghast. "He wanted to die, Elrond. He _tried_ to die. I can even tell you he thought it was fitting. Timo with his Silmaril in the ground, your parents' hold theirs in the sky, and he would follow his to the bottom of the sea."

She gave him a very plain look. "The Valar denied him, Elrond. He washed up alive on the shores of this land, thousands of leagues away from where he had been. He _wanted_ to die, Elrond, to start to absolve himself. The Valar denied him that absolution." She did not need stress the finality or sting of that denial.

Elrond stared at her for a long while, but she was not yet done. She touched a hand to her chest. "I can still feel an echo of him, Elrond. I feel his fëa, and yet I know it is not him. He is as a wraith, a living ghost wandering the land and unable to die. When I say you should not look," she whispered, "it is because I care… for you and for him. You should simply remember him as you knew him. He would rather it be that way."

The ellon continued to stare at her, valiantly trying to stop his lip from trembling, and after a few moments, Aratariel walked over to him and pulled him into a hug. It was a while before she felt his arms move to hug her back, but eventually he pulled her tighter to himself. They stood like that, a comfort to one another, for quite some time.

Throughout the years of their friendship following that day, they never spoke of Maglor's fate again. If they did mention him in the company of one another, it was always to speak of a pleasant memory. It was common knowledge to the Eldar in Ennor that the second son of Fëanor wandered the shores of the sea in lament, though none but the two others ever knew the full extent of his suffering.

* * *

Hello! This is another chapter in the life of the elleth Aratariel, whom I obviously created. She is the Seven Sons' cousin (Nerdanel's niece) and has survived through the First Age to the Second.

She was of similar age and always very close to both Maedhros and Maglor growing up, and was later one of their highest ranked generals in Beleriand. In my head she was around, but predominantly aloof, when Maglor and Maedhros were raising the Twins. She never saw herself as the maternal type and didn't know what to do with children (and someone had to be around to run things when MM were off child-rearing). When she did visit and spend time with them, she connected better with Elros than Elrond. Elrond therefore knew her as a child, but to him she was more of the strict and old scary lady he was afraid to talk to, an impression that never really went away no matter how much better he knew her. I give allusion to a number of other aspects of her life that I have not written yet, but they're there.

Please let me know what you think!


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